


Gravity

by Senket



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Drunken Confessions, M/M, Marriage, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senket/pseuds/Senket
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James T. Kirk has gotten married today. Bones can't quite deal with. Actually, he can't deal with it at all. He's spent so much time orbiting around Jim Kirk that the thought of existing on the fringes of his life is unbearable. Or: Bones ruins Jim's wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

The thing is, Jim looks good in white. He looks really, really good. Especially when his bowtie and pocket square match his bright azure eyes. Especially when he keeps smiling like that, like he can't contain the light inside him. It doesn't help that he keeps coming over, it doesn't help that he's bursting with happiness, it doesn't help that he keeps _touching_ , affectionate shoves and arms around shoulders and a brief squeeze of fingers. It doesn't help that the bar is furnishing free drinks and Bones hasn't stopped drinking since the reception started four, five hours ago. He already promised to forever hold his peace but he's starting to regret it more than ever.

The twelfth time Jim comes to hang out with his best man before his new bride draws him away breaks him. He can't be in this room anymore, he can't deal with Jim like this. He can't stand to be just one of the satellites orbiting the sun that his best friend has always been and the gravitational pull is worst than ever. He pushes himself up and his legs nearly give way beneath him. It's been a long, long time since he's been this drunk but he's still feeling _everything_. He takes the long way out of the room because he has to keep a hand against the wall. Still, it's his shoulder more often than not, and he barely makes it outside. The blast of fresh air makes him briefly nauseous but a few deep breaths cut through the lightheadedness. He stumbles down the steps in the darkness, the grounds illuminated only by Risa's dual moons and the light from inside. He sits on the stone bench  just outside the slice of light from the doorway, concentrating on his breathing.

The solitude doesn't last long. Jim joins him, sitting behind him. He's still beaming, glowing really. He presses his leg all along Bones' own, shoves a shoulder against his. "What's wrong, Bones?" he laughs boisterously. "Done already? Ready to retire, old man?"

"Jim..." he grumbles, heavy. There's nothing for him to say. Six hours ago he stood beside James T. Kirk when the captain of the Enterprise said 'I do,' but he'd been on the wrong side. Hollow.

"Come on, man, it's a party!" Jim claps his hand against the man's back- he sways forward from the blow and Jim catches him. The younger man's arms stay wrapped around Bones' shoulders as the doctor straightens slowly. Jim's arms are warm through his suit, solid against Bones' chest.

The thing is, Jim looks really, really good in white. The thing is, Bones hasn't been this drunk in years. The thing is, Bones doesn't have anything to lose, because he's already lost everything he wanted. Jim is looking at _him_ , really looking, and his eyes are bright and creased with happiness and he hasn't stopped beaming all night and Bones feels like he's haemorrhaging.

So he kisses his captain under Risa's twin moons. Jim goes still against him and he knows it's not a good sign but he's _hungry_ , he's desperate, so he leans harder against the younger man. He grips Jim's jaw with one hand and curls the other around the back of Jim's neck, pulls the man against him and kisses him again. Tries to taste him, but nothing can hope to cut through the amount of bourbon he's had tonight. He doesn't notice the pathetic little whimper that slips him as he presses harder into the still body. He tongues Jim's frozen mouth, rubs his thumb against the crease of Jim's faded smile, presses his fingertips hard into the man's skin.

Jim doesn't move once. Leonard reluctantly disengages, chances a glance at the younger man's face.

Jim looks shattered. The light has faded from him. Mouth slightly open, turned down at the corners, his chin jerks. He stares at McCoy, _stares_ , shock and chaos and something painful. He's silent, silent and still as he never is.

" _Aw hell_ ," the country doctor swears, his legs shaking. He pushes himself up, away. He can't bear Jim's expression, can't bear the silence. He knows he's broken something. It turns out he had something left to lose after all. "I'll just. I'll just go to bed." The man stumbles back inside, nearly falling on the steps as he climbs back up towards the muted lights. Blue eyes follow him.

He needs an attendant to help him back to his room. He shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his shoes, removes his belt, but that's all he can manage. Bones climbs into bed and covers his head with his pillow and if he cries then there's nobody there to care.

The next morning he can barely move. He feels like if he tries he'll get sick but he's not sure he won't get sick either way. He wants to close the curtains but they're too far and the thought of stepping into the sunlight makes him want to shrink into a hole and disappear forever. _Everything_ makes him want to shrink into a hole and disappear forever.

He lays in bed another hour. Two. He calls room service for fruit and water because he knows he needs it but when they come he can't make himself get out of bed and answer the door. He rolls over and goes back to sleep instead. He wakes twice. His communication device has probably gone off six times but he doesn't even want to look at it. He can't go out to the continuing festivities. He can't stand on the stoop at sunset and wish the bride and groom a happy honeymoon as they disappear off into the fading light. He can't function. He calls room service again and orders a new bottle of bourbon, even though he still can't sit up without feeling like he's going to fall over and pass out.

Someone knocks on his door a few minutes later and when he answers it's Jim. They stare at each other inscrutably for several moments before his captain, his best friend, his light, his sun, the cause of the bleeding ache in his chest pushes past. He follows the movement with wavering confusion, closing the door because he can't think of what else to do, leaning heavily against it.

Jim sets the bottle of bourbon on the bedside table. Uncertain, he wavers for a moment before standing at the side of the window, staring out; it's still afternoon on Risa and the light is golden, slanting across the sky and catching Jim alight. Bones swallows heavily; he shuts his eyes but the man's silhouette is burned into his mind, an afterimage of incandescence.

"Bones..." Jim's voice is soft, uncharacteristically wounded. Even drunk, he rarely sounds that way.

"Jim," he answers, because he always will, he always _must_ , inexorably drawn towards the captain, forever orbiting, unbreakably attached. Wavering forward, he opens his eyes again, takes three steps. Jim has turned to face him. There's only the bed between them; shakily, weak-kneed, Leonard kneels on the mattress, his dark eyes fixed on the younger man. Now, in the silence they're each unable to escape, he notices _Jim_.

The man is still in yesterday's suit. The pocket square has disappeared, the azure bowtie hangs undone. The shirt is open to expose his throat and collarbone, his waistcoat half-unbuttoned. His eyes are rimmed red, not from crying; a vessel in his left eye seems to have cracked and there's a shock of red beside his iris. His jaw is dusted with stubble. His shoulders slump forward, his hands twitching slightly by his sides. Bones, as his doctor, as his best friend, as a man in love, recognizes the symptoms. Jim has yet to sleep.

"I'm sorry." It slips from him, soft and tumbled, and never has a chance to catch in his chest. Not like 'I love you,' not like the confession he had held so deep and so full and so secret inside him, its roots twisting through him and locked in place. Immovable, irremovable.

"Bones-"

"I didn't mean to ruin everything."

Jim's left hand jerks violently. "Bones."

"I'm sorry," he says again, and he's not sure he'll ever stop, because he needs Jim to know, Jim needs to understand that he can't live like this that he'll never survive if he has to stand at the edge of Jim's life and revolve around him without ever having the chance to touch him, he needs to _know_. McCoy shuts his eyes because he can't stand to look at the open pain in Jim's eyes but he can't stop because he's already lost. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

The bed dips and he opens his eyes again, a frown creasing his brow. "Jim-"

He doesn't get any farther. Jim grips his shoulders and pulls him forward sharply, seals their mouths together. Shocked, Bones gasps- Jim answers by pushing his tongue into the doctor's mouth. His fingers skitter around Bones' shoulders. He slides into the man's lap, knees solid against Bones' hips, his fingers dragging hard against the man's shirt, digging into his side. His kiss is fast and deep and desperate, sharp and needy.

Without quite understanding why anything is happening, McCoy can still understand 'what.' He tips them both forward almost violently, pressing Jim down into the mattress with his full weight. His hands fly between them; surgeon's hands, they don't shake in the slightest, aren't clumsy in the slightest. He unbuttons vest and shirt in moments. A squeeze of Jim's hands against his biceps has him undoing his own too. He pushes back down over Kirk, running his fingers through golden hair and over a sharp-stubbled cheek, moulds around the familiar contours of Jim's ribcage and slim waist. He's touched him a thousand times but it's never been like _this._ On edge but needing _so much_ , he rocks their hips together sharply- but Jim's cry is more pain than the shock of pleasure. He draws back, his expression twisted with confusion, disbelief, fear- he feels like he's at the edge of the world. Even now his fingers won't leave Jim. He maps the planes and contours of the man's body, committing his every sense to memory. A part of him is convinced this is their first and last hurrah, that he'll never be able to see Jim again, because there are only two ways now. He can spiral in and burn up into the other man or he can sail out into the darkness, but his days of steady orbit are over.

Jim flattens his palm against Bones' cheek, drags down his jaw. Bones turns his head, kisses the man's palm. He holds there, taking in a slow, deep breath. He memorizes the smell, too, the slightly salty taste of Jim's skin. His own thumb smooths slowly down the line of Jim's throat and he feels the captain swallow, catches the movement of Jim's tongue sweeping over his bottom lip from the corner of his eye. Jim pushes slightly on his cheek with the tip of his fingers and he allows his head to move straight on again. Their eyes meet. Jim looks exhausted. He looks hurt. What he doesn't look is confused, or frightened, or nervous. He doesn't look uncertain, not in the slightly bit.

"Bones."

"Jim."

"I had the marriage annulled."

It takes him a moment, his mind still muddled from alcohol and fear. He had the- oh. _Oh_. Bones feels delirious. Sick. _Ecstatic_. It only takes the slightest tug from Jim and he's pushing the other man into the mattress hard; he kisses Jim like he's trying to swallow him, like he wants to burn up after all, like he wants to sink into him until they're no longer discernible the one from the other. He's hard and fast and crude, pulling clothes from the other man. It's not even about sex, it's- he needs to be close, as _close_ as possible, and Jim is so so _so warm_ against him, and when Bones looks Jim's bright so bright blue eyes are fixed on him again, _fixed_ , and he doesn't look away not once and Bones feels like the light is going to sink into him, like he's going to burst.

When the sun does go down they're curled around each other, wound tightly, wrapped together. He strokes his fingers over the knobs of Jim's spine, over and over and over, the man's head tucked under his chin. He can feel Jim's breath against his throat, the scrape of Jim's toenails against his calves and ankles. He can feel Jim's heartbeat in every part of his skin. He sucks in Jim's heat, lets it sink deep into him where it won't ever be extinguished. He falls asleep like that, tangled up in the thing he loves.

He wakes cool. For a moment utter gut-clenching fear seizes him, convinces him that the entire event had been a hallucination born of desperation. The bed dips. Startled, he sits up: Jim smiles, hands him a glass of water. "Idiot," Jim breathes into the blackness of midnight, the brightest thing, as always, in the room, his eyes glowing in the dim light. "You might have said something sooner."

Bones doesn't answer; he's not sure he can. He pulls Jim to him instead, drinks the sunshine in. Jim laughs against his mouth and runs his golden fingers down McCoy's sides. "I can't believe I was only married for _seven hours_."

"You c'n be married for more if you like," Bones whispers against his shoulder, mouthing at warm skin.

"It _would_ be a shame to waste that honeymoon suite," he answers, pleased, bright. Jim laughter rings and, inexorably, lifts Bones heavenwards.


End file.
